Life After Ministry

Today we’re looking at a talk given by Erastus Snow, an early LDS apostle, and using it as an example of how the twisting of words can turn everything in the Bible upside down.

Journal of Discourses 19:278-279 “…the Apostle Paul says, “There are Lords many and Gods many, yet” said he, “unto us there is but one God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ,” and that is enough for us.

And we may say to every child, though there are fathers many and mothers many, but to you there is but one, and that is enough, that is enough for you.

Honor your father and your mother, and let your father and mother honor their father and mother, and this is the chain of the Priesthood, and power let down from the eternities to man on the earth.

And may God enable us to grow in this chain, and climb higher and higher, onward and upward, and work ourselves up to the eternal power and godhead.

These are not the words of a God-fearing Christian. No Christian believes they’ll be part of the Godhead, nor do they believe there’s a pyramid like system they must ascribe to in their Christian walk with the Lord. This has to be one of the worst talks we’ve ever read by one of the Church leaders and it’s heartbreaking to say the last.

What he says next definitely exhibits Mr. Snow’s true intentions.

I repeat to you what the Apostle Paul said to the Ephesians, in his epistle to them; says he, “Brethren, let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who, when he found himself in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with him.”

This is from Philippians chapter two, not Ephesians.

But, says the narrow-minded bigot sectarian, What blasphemy? for man, in the form of God, to aspire to be equal with him! That is precisely the exhortation of St. Paul to his former-day Saints.

Man is not the form of God. God came to earth in the form of man!

… St. Paul understood what he declared, and he wished to instil [sic] this same faith and feeling in numbers of his brethren, and cherish the same feeling, hope and aspiration, and labor and aspire to rise up and become one with God, because, says he, “You are his image, and you are his.” Why? We may aspire to be equal with him, and that is not robbery. Yes, Jesus, who found himself in the form of God, though[t] it not robbery to become equal with him. How can that be?

Here’s what Matthew Henry had to say about the passage in Philippians 2:6-8 –

“It is the highest degree of robbery for any mere man or mere creature to pretend to be equal with God, or profess himself one with the Father. This is for a man to rob God, not in tithes and offerings, but of the rights of his Godhead, Malachi 3:8.”

That should serve as an ominous warning! The highest degree of robbery…

The Scriptures tell us that God, in bestowing blessings, loses nothing. …instead of losing anything he is greatly enriching himself. He is enlarging and extending his dominions, he is multiplying his kingdoms, and his offsprings, over which he is extending his benign influence…

Why is God’s influence benign?

Then, says the Apostle Paul, Why your narrow-mindedness, Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ, who, finding himself in the form of God, thought it not robbery to become equal with him, growing up unto Christ, our living head, and that is the object of the organization of the Priesthood on the earth, and the classification, and organization of the Church of Christ upon the earth.

Mr. Snow misquoted God’s word here. Philippians 2:8 reads – ‘And being found in fashion as a man…’

Jesus didn’t ‘find Himself in the form of God’! Jesus already knew He was God, and humbled Himself to become an example for us in the form of a man.

Snow went on to declare…

It is not to exclude and send down to damnation, to hell, everybody that does not subscribe to our ideas and beliefs… but it is to gather out men and women…that they may … lay hold upon the promises of God and climb up upon this chain that is laid down from the Gods of eternity to their children on earth.

Climbing by this chain till they are built up in Christ, our living head, and become one with Christ Jesus…

How can Jesus be our head if we’re co-equal with Him?

Now, again, that same Paul says, in the same epistle to the Ephesians, that Christ set in his Church first Apostles, secondly Prophets, and thirdly Evangelists, Pastors, and Teachers, and gifts and healings.

This isn’t the same epistle, but this time he’s right when stating it’s from Ephesians. Specifically it’s Ephesians 4:11-12 “And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; 12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ”.

…Here are the objects of this organization of this Priesthood, and the ordinances …to urge them on, faster, further and further, until they shall attain to this fullness of eternal power and the Godhead.

Well it’s from that organization alright, but definitely not from the Lord’s perfect gospel!

… and that we may not turn back to the beggarly elements of the world… and learn to appreciate our true position, and our high and holy calling, and labor to perfect ourselves…rising up to the eternal power and Godhead and the perfection that is in him…” —  Erastus Snow, Beaver City, March 3, 1878

This appreciation is going to be short lived. There’s nothing in heaven that resembles anything this man preached. Unfortunately it’s the same thing still being preached from Salt Lake. This man’s talk was full of mistakes which again is much like it is in Mormonism today.

Pray for Mormons to pay attention to what their leaders say from the pulpit. It’s obvious they don’t know what they’re talking about!

With Love in Christ;

Michelle

1 Cor 1:18